TEHRAN — Finding new overseas markets can create a balance between exports and imports of pharmaceuticals and medical equipment, the deputy health minister, Iraj Harirchi, said on Monday.

He made the remarks while visiting the Tehran Times pavilion at the 22nd Press Exhibition which is being held in Tehran.

Harirchi highlighted that the only way to save the pharmaceutical and medical equipment industry in Iran is to expand the target markets.

Before the incumbent administration takes office [in August 2013] the pharmaceutical and medical equipment] imports were valued at some $1.3 billion, while the exports merely totaled some $50 to $70 million, he regretted, adding, “We’ve been able to make some corrections [in past years] and managed to restrict the import value to some $1 billion and increase the level of export but we still fall short of the ideal.”

He went on to say that “some of the trips Health Minister [Hassan Qazizadeh Hashemi] has taken so far to countries such as Russia, Iraq, Lebanon, and Algeria are also aimed at expanding the market overseas so as to create a reasonable balance between the level of export and import in the country.”

It is clear that no country can reduce import to zero but it is possible to find an appropriate balance between import and export, he stated.